Kylie Minogue reveals the home comforts she can't live withoutThe singer launched her successful Kylie Minogue At Home collection in 2008
OCTOBER 06, 2017 - 15:05 BST BY CHLOE BEST

Kylie Minogue is set to inject some sparkle into homes around the UK with the launch of her new bedding collection for AW17. The singer's Kylie Minogue At Home range has been hugely successful since its launch in 2008, with designs inspired by her travels and music career, and the new collection is sure to be no exception. Here, Kylie reveals her favourite pieces, her home styling secrets and shares the home comforts she can't live without.

What pieces do you particularly love from this collection?
It's not easy to answer that! Each design has its own identity and story to tell. I especially love the Glitter Fade for its ombre effect and Atmosphere for its lovely texture and shine. Each piece has been carefully designed with the wonderful team at Kylie Minogue At Home. We had a very specific vision for this collection and I'm delighted with the results!

As a child of the 1980s, I grew up watching Kylie Minogue playing the role of the car mechanic Charlene Robinson in the long-running Australian soap Neighbours. I had a poster of her and her co-star Jason Donovan on my bedroom wall and fervently wished the two of them were romantically involved in real life (later, it would turn out they were).

My best friend, Susan, introduced me to her first album — called simply Kylie — and we listened to it on long car journeys, forcing our parents to rewind the cassette tape over and over again.

As I grew older, Minogue also matured as an artist. Over the course of three decades, she has released 13 albums and sold more than 80m records. Along the way, she constantly reinvented herself: sex kitten, showgirl, electro-pop dance queen and honorary Brit after moving to Knightsbridge, London, in 2011.

Her new album, Golden, sees Minogue in her new incarnation as country-music babe. It was written partly in Nashville, and the songs have an upbeat, twanging lilt that ensures they lodge in your brain and stay there, relentlessly catchy, for the rest of the day. The video for the first single, Dancing, features Minogue line-dancing in rhinestone and cowboy boots.

Unlike Madonna, whose reincarnations have been just as dramatic, Minogue has never seemed brittle or aloof. If fame consists of two overlapping circles, one denoting celebrity and the other relatability, Minogue is one of those rare beasts who occupies the sweet spot at the centre of the Venn diagram. We feel we know her because we have grown up alongside her.

When Minogue sweeps into the lobby of the Ritz hotel, where we’re meeting, she looks almost exactly the same as that poster on my bedroom wall from 30 years ago: smiling features, expressive eyes and chipmunk cheeks. She’s 49, turning 50 in May, yet the only sign of age is a radial smattering of crow’s feet. In person, she is tiny and lithe, like a glamorous whippet, and wears a white T-shirt, gold snakeskin boots and a skirt hemmed with sparkling thread. She looks like something you’d find on top of a particularly camp Christmas tree.

“It means so much to me!” she whoops when I tell her my Kylie anecdotes. “I love hearing these stories. It blows my mind. If you didn’t tell me, I wouldn’t know.”

She says that one of the things she most likes about being on stage is that sense of intimate connection. “On a cosmic level, I love it. People have bought the tickets, they’ve listened to songs. Or they’ve arranged babysitters or they’ve done their hair, it’s all that other stuff that I don’t know about that just fills my heart.”

Her fans are clearly important to her. There is a track, Sincerely Yours, on the new album that is dedicated to them (chorus: “Even when it hurts / There’s nothing on earth I wouldn’t do for you”) and you get the sense she takes strength from their loyalty. They’ve seen her go through a lot over the years, not least her most recent break-up, from her 29-year-old fiancé, the actor Joshua Sasse, last February amid rumours of his infidelity.

The couple met in 2015, on the set of the American TV show Galavant, and the end of their relationship was all the more cruel because Minogue, who is usually reticent about her private life, had been on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in December 2015 professing her devotion with unfiltered enthusiasm. She referred to Sasse as “my love” and said it would be “incredible” to start a family. For one of her eight selected tracks, she broke with convention and allowed Sasse to choose a recording as a surprise (it was of him reading an erotic poem written by his father, Dominic).

Today, Minogue says candidly that she was “broken” by the end of the relationship. She took herself off to Thailand with two girlfriends to recuperate.

“I just wanted to stop,” she says. “I knew I needed to heal my … My physical system was compromised. I think it’s called a nervous breakdown.”

She shows me what she means, and starts to shiver, hunching over, curving in on herself. “I just thought, ‘No, no, no, no.’ ”

Thailand was an opportunity to “reclaim myself and get strong and get going”. She spent her days on the beach, talking to her friends or choosing to say nothing at all, and at the end of it she felt “absolutely calm”.

How long was she there for? “Six days.”

I thought she was going to say six months.

“Oh God, no! Six days are for ever. I think I reacted pretty quickly. I can take a nose dive pretty fast, but I won’t stay there long. I’m too practical.”

She says there was a part of her that had felt getting engaged to Sasse and following a conventional route to marriage (albeit with a near 20-year age gap between them) was the right thing to do.

“I went through all the motions of ‘This is what people do’, ” she says. “And it wasn’t the right union. I’ve never been that woman, that girl who dreams of walking down the aisle. You dust yourself off and you go through that period of ‘Never again. Not going to do it.’ ”

Minogue is nothing if not an incurable romantic, however. Her love affairs with dashingly handsome men are passionate and always seem to last at least two years, the details endlessly pored over in the gossip columns — from the late rock star Michael Hutchence to the French actor Olivier Martinez and the Spanish model Andres Velencoso.

“I love romance and I love to feel in love or be in love,” she admits. Now that the shock of the break-up with Sasse has worn off, Minogue says her internal monologue about finding love again is both optimistic and circumspect: “I probably will do it. What’s going to happen? Will it work? Probably won’t work. Might work. I’ll give it a try.” She smiles. “All these questions! I don’t think it really matters what age you are [after a break-up], but at my age you do go, ‘What now?’

“Although I’m not that bothered right at the minute, I’m enjoying being … how can I say this? Being fully within myself.”

It’s interesting that, in all of this, Minogue never once mentions Sasse by name.

“I really don’t want to talk about it much because I don’t think it’s fair on him.” Then she adds, “I’m beyond that story,” and you get a clear sense of her strength: a glimmer of steel beneath the sweet pop-poppet exterior.

“How do you get over it?” She shrugs. “You just do.”

As a performer, Minogue has always lived by the guiding principle that the show must go on. She has never known any different. As a child growing up in Melbourne, “I didn’t dream of doing anything else”.

Her father, Ron, was an accountant, but her mother, Carol, was a professional dancer and used to take her three children (Minogue has two younger siblings, Brendan, 47, a cameraman, and Dannii, 46, who of course followed her into pop) to theatre shows and music classes. Minogue played the piano and the violin, but then discovered Prince, Adam Ant and Duran Duran and lost interest in classical music. She dreamt of becoming “Olivia Newton-John in Grease or the blonde one in Abba” and for a while indulged in a fantasy that the father of the family next door “would be a record producer and would hear me singing”.

Her flair for performing landed her small parts in soap operas before she made her debut in the role of Charlene in 1986. It was a breakthrough that made her a household name and that culminated in an on-screen wedding to Scott, played by Jason Donovan, which attracted an audience of 20m in Britain.

The pressure was intense. For a while, she suffered from anxiety and confided in her brother, who she describes as “the rock, he’s just so solid, caring. He’s got a great expression — he says, ‘It’s just the pfffffer valve.’ ”

The what?

“The pfffffer valve. You just go pfffff, like something on a steam engine. You’ve just got to let it out.”

She still uses the pfffffer valve. Recently, because she has been travelling a lot, “I’ve had few moments where I’m so tired I just feel like I need a good cry.” She wants to find a weepy film she can watch expressly for this purpose (“a good chick flick so I can have a really good howl”). She’ll settle on a classic such as Out of Africa.

At the height of her teenage fame, Minogue started releasing music in Australia, before being flown to London to meet with the record producers Stock, Aitken and Waterman. For days, she wandered around the city waiting for their call. She visited Madame Tussauds and went on an open-topped bus tour, all the while hoping they hadn’t forgotten about her.

When she was finally summoned, the producers sat around unsure of what to do with this blue-eyed ingenue. According to Minogue, one of them said, “We need a song,” another said, “She should be so lucky,” and lo, a pop classic was born. I Should Be So Lucky went on to sell more than 1m copies.

Since then, Minogue’s pace of work has been fairly relentless. “I’m conditioned,” she says. “When the red [on air] light goes on, you’re on it. Sell it, whatever it is. I think that’s from my days on Neighbours. There’s no time, learn your lines, do it, move on to the next one.”

It’s a get-on-with-it attitude that has got her through some of her toughest times — because it’s easy to forget, given her warmth and down-to-earth charm, that she has been through a lot. She dated the INXS frontman, Michael Hutchence, for two years from 1989; he was found dead in a hotel room in Sydney in 1997.

“RIP,” Minogue sighs.

It was a tragedy, I say.

“It really was,” she nods. “What a creature! So charismatic, so gorgeous, funny, all of that. A great loss.”

She credits Hutchence with giving her confidence to explore her sexuality, both on stage and off it. He used to tell her, before she performed, that it was time “to put your ego jacket on”.

“Half of us performers are the most insecure bunch you’ll ever come across,” she says. “We’re asking, ‘When are they going to find out I’m a fraud?’ ”

Hutchence, with his strutting machismo and self-belief, helped her get through that. She still thinks of the “ego jacket” every time she goes on stage.

“You could be sick, you could be going through a break-up, you could just have had really bad news about something, but the show must go on.”

Away from the limelight, Minogue describes herself as “a bit shy”. When she recorded the now-infamous video for Spinning Around, writhing atop a bar in gold hot pants bought by a friend for 50p down Portobello Market, it was as if a mental switch had been flicked and then it was “cool, go for it, slide down the bar …” She breaks off for a sexy little shimmy — Minogue is a very physical conversationalist. “Yeah, I wouldn’t wear the hot pants as me, but in that world, it makes sense.”

In fact, her pert derriere became so famous that The Sun sponsored a campaign in the early Noughties to have Minogue’s rear end listed as a World Heritage Site on the grounds that it was an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The gold hot pants, meanwhile, have been permanently rehoused at the Arts Centre Melbourne, where no one is allowed to touch them without putting on a pair of white gloves first.

She began to think of her bottom as “a separate entity”. “At the time, there was so much talk about the hot pants I was like, ‘Well, they can go and do all the bloody interviews then, I’ll stay home!’” It’s intriguing how much of her performative self she thinks of in the third person. Does she have a divaesque alter ego, like Beyoncé’s Sasha Fierce?

“I don’t have a name for it like Beyoncé does, but there’s definitely … I don’t know what to call it, it’s not a chasm, it’s not a void, but it’s a space, it’s a real space right before you go on and everything just changes.”

Occasionally, though, real life intervenes with shattering force. She was halfway through her Showgirl tour in 2005 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was 36, felt a lump and went for a mammogram at a walk-in clinic in Melbourne. The well-meaning nurse told Minogue she wasn’t old enough to be there.

“She said, ‘What are you doing around this end? You’re not 40.’ I made some joke about, ‘No, I’m not 40, but won’t be too far off,’ that kind of thing.”

When she got the results, “I never really thought, ‘Why me?’ I didn’t think that. But it was a total shock, obviously. I remember every moment. It was absolutely slow motion. Time kind of stood still.”

She cancelled the tour and was treated in Paris, where she was living with her then-boyfriend, Olivier Martinez. She had a partial mastectomy and rounds of radiation and chemotherapy that left her so weakened that “walking to the cafe was a big deal: you’ve got no hair, no lashes, no nothing and it was like, ‘OK, I’m going to go down to the cafe.’ That was a big deal.” Her voice becomes quiet. Her eyes glaze over. “It’s not the easiest thing to remember.”

Has she reconciled herself with her own mortality?

“It’s a huge question. I don’t know.”

I’m aware of the irony of discussing this with someone so inextricably linked to eternal youth. For so long, Minogue has seemed ageless, partly because — by her own admission — she went a little overboard with the Botox. She has since ditched the botulism and looks much better: her face is more structured, more graceful and seems more at peace with itself. She still looks a good 20 years younger than her real age and it’s fairly astonishing to think she is turning 50 in May.

“I know,” she groans, and then she stops herself. “I shouldn’t say it like that.” She sits up straighter and says brightly: “I know, I am!”

“I do feel like doing something a bit out of character like throw a massive party. That’s not what I normally do, but I think I’m going to do it this year.”

In the past, Minogue has spoken about her desire to start a family. Approaching her half-century has thrown that into doubt. Does she still want children?

“No, not for me,” she says firmly. “Been down that road, numerous times, as in, ‘Can I make this happen?’ But no. I mean, if I think about what it must be to be a mother and look into your child’s eyes, I mean, that’s …” She scrabbles around, searching for the right way to express something that has clearly been a painful realisation. “Of course I wonder what that would be like. But your destiny is your destiny and I can’t imagine, if by some miracle I got pregnant … at this point in my life, I wonder, could I even manage that?” She pauses. “That’s not in my life.

“It would be a lie to say there’s not a bit of sadness there, but I don’t get caught up in it. I can’t. I mean, what can I do? And there’s a high probability, if/when I meet someone, that they will have children anyway. So I could imagine being a stepmum.”

There is a beat of silence and then the atmosphere shifts, from inward reflection to upbeat optimism at the flick of an invisible switch. She smiles and her gold boots shimmer and twinkle. I wonder if she’s in the space, that liminal zone where she puts on her “ego jacket” before going on stage — because whatever else happens, whatever she has been through, Kylie Minogue has always known the show must go on.

There's something about Kylie Minogue. Still. After 30 years of working the corsets and the feathers and delivering the perfectly adequate but not startling vocals, the occasional acting gig and the marriage equality work, she remains effervescent, lovely and widely admired, especially in the United Kingdom, where she was awarded an OBE, and Australia, where they have already immortalised her in bronze.

Kylie is one of a handful of performers of her generation who can legitimately be called an 'icon'. She's sold 80 million records, her gold hot pants are in a museum, she's part of our cultural history, she's a circus master, she's Kylie – so when you get a chance to chat to her, you grab it.

And then you wonder what on earth you'll talk about, because you don't want to be one of those vultures who pick over her operatic love life or make sly allusions to her age (she turns 50 this year), and frankly there's not a lot to say about another album of upbeat, disco-inspired poppy froth. It's nice, you know?

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Disclaimer: I am a Kylie fan. The 2001 Fever album helped me through a difficult time, and hearing it still makes me happy. When she brings her new tour to New Zealand, I will be there, spinning around in the crowd. Move outta my way.

I really don't want to provoke her, so it's a relief when she jumps on the touchy topics right off the bat. Kylie has one of the most obsessively reported love lives in modern history. Jennifer Aniston-level ridiculous. Jason Donovan, her first famous boyfriend and Neighbours co-star, helped her become a household name; INXS frontman Michael Hutchence turned her goodie two-shoes image on its head; French actor Olivier Martinez supported her through breast cancer; Spanish model Andres Velencoso left her crying alone every night after he left.

Kylie says making Golden soothed her during her most recent heartbreak, after she ended her relationship with British actor Joshua Sasse, to whom she was engaged. She spent two weeks in Nashville concentrating solely on writing music. "It was incredible, there is something in the air, that place has a magic quality and I don't think I would have the album I have today if I hadn't made that trip," she says. "And if I had the opportunity to go back, I'd go in a heartbeat. I loved it."

Her first original album since that stinker Kiss Me Once in 2014 (215,000 worldwide sales, compared to Fever, with 6 million sales) Golden hits the market next month. It is her 14th, and even she seems surprised by that.

"I was being a clown as usual the other day and went off into some spin laughing with a friend and I said, 'This my 14th studio album!' and he said, 'Is this number 14?' and I thought, 'Is it?'"

She has returned – joyfully – to the formula that worked so well for her in the past, and without being rude or unkind, because she is Kylie, she reassures us that this album will not be an unsatisfying pastiche like Kiss Me Once, which was produced by a cast of 18, including Sia and Pharrell Williams.

"The A and R is someone I worked with at my previous label for 10 or 11 years. Spinning Around, Can't Get You Out of My Head, On a Night Like This – we had a lot of success together. It was different to the last album where I was sort of ferried around to tonnes of different studios, did tonnes of different songs and didn't really have a guiding light or know where I was really going. Not to totally down that project, but that's just the way it was and for this one I wanted to make it a bit easier. Just because something's easier doesn't mean it's not going to have as good a result."

Also different to the last album, she won't be indulging others' interest in her age while promoting Golden. In fact the name pre-empts it. "I did say early on, I like Golden [as a title]. Golden came from just a sentence that I wanted to put in somewhere, and it morphed a bit. At first I wanted to say I'm not young, I'm not old, I'm golden. Yes I'm older than I was before, but I'm younger than I will be. Golden is sunny, many great things are golden: golden stars, how we see the moon, golden light, golden sand, golden hair, blah blah blah...

"The last album, I got so tired of the question, 'How do you feel being 48, 49, whatever it was, in the pop music business?' My answer was that the question was wearing me down more than actually being what we were actually talking about."

A quick poll of my friends and acquaintances on social media suggests that while Kylie is "insanely hot still" and "awesome" in person, she is best-loved for not taking herself too seriously and for her resilience, an old-fashioned quality that is making a comeback in this age in which we carp on about millennial snowflakes and pre-schoolers who are already afraid to fail.

"She's good at taking the piss out of her own early bubblegum hits," says one commenter, who happens to be music writer Grant Smithies, who has also interviewed La Minogue.

"She has had some crap come her way over the years and she still gets back up," says another. "She reads as a complex and tragic personality," says the friend with the advanced education degree and two babies at home.

Another friend finds her teeth "almost threatening", which seems worth mentioning if not entirely relevant.

Singer Rufus Wainwright explains her appeal this way: "Kylie knows herself inside out. She is what she is and there is no attempt to make quasi-intellectual statements to substantiate it." He also says Kylie is "gay shorthand for joy".

As for her superstar career path, Kylie says she has no plan, and never has. "I didn't set out to do it [for 30 years] I've just gone step by step, project by project. I was absolutely useless at having a long-term plan. I admire people who have that commitment and that ability to plan, I'm just not that person. The way I went about it seems to have worked so far.

"I'm a Gemini, there are so many voices in my head – there's a committee. Gemini is the twins, but there's a committee up there, there's generally a lot of noise up there, so I don't think a committee can organise themselves to plan for five years in the future."

So far 2018 has been hectic, which possibly proves her point. Not only is she doing the promo circuit to support Golden, but she has been promoting the Australian film Swinging Safari, about a boy who is captivated by a 200-tonne whale that has washed up on the beach, while his parents (played by Kylie and Guy Pearce) experiment with key-swapping.

A semi-autobiographical dramedy, the film was written by Stephan Elliott (Priscilla, Queen of the Desert). "None of us can convince anyone it was anything other than fun," laughs Kylie of the shameless ode to 70s suburbia. "It was work but everyone had a blast. Every day when one of the six adult cast would come out in a new outfit, it was already a good start to the day.

"I would have loved to keep [my character's] wig, I thought it was fantastic. Lizzie Gardiner was the wardrobe mistress. There was one dress an extra was wearing and I said, 'Oh what's that?' That's now in my closet. Straight off an extra's back!"

When we speak, she is still figuring out how she wants to perform her first single, Dancing, and an upcoming TV performance is giving her "mild anxiety".

"The first few performances of a song that has only ever lived in a studio [are always tough]," she says. "Get Outta My Way [from the 2010 Aphrodite album] had all this intricate choreography and a dozen dancers, maybe more, and chairs and avoiding chairs, dancing on chairs, crazy heels I could barely walk in. I hadn't figured out how to sing the song live and it all seemed impossible.

"Once you've done it half a dozen times and with older songs, you don't have to think, you can have fun with it."

WHY KYLIE STOPPED PUSHING FOR MARRIAGE EQUALITY

A vocal campaigner for marriage equality in Australia, Kylie Minogue worried that celebrity support for the bill to allow same-sex couples to marry would taint the public postal survey.

She says that as the vote approached, she "pulled back", to avoid putting people off voting 'yes', given the rallying from celebrities including Ricky Martin, Miley Cyrus and Ellen de Generes.

"Most people were just over it, even if you were really passionate about it," she says. "I have a friend who's been in a relationship with the same guy for 30 years. His mother said, 'Oh, I am just so over it all,' and it was kind of reaching that stage.

"I was in London when the marriage equality announcement came through. I was standing by and going, oh my god, oh my god, please please please. The closer it got to the end of the postal ballot, I was worried that having more and more and more celebrities [supporting it] might backfire, and so I kind of pulled back a little bit.

"I just found it was a bit of a conundrum how to handle it. I was thinking of Hillary Clinton having all that star power on her side and people thinking this is a no brainer [and still she lost the US Presidential election], so part of me was worried that would happen. So the relief when the yes vote came through, I was just so happy."

Kylie Minogue Was So Starstruck By Dolly Parton She Barely Remembers Meeting Her
By Noah Michelson

“Golden” is the first collection of songs entirely co-written by Minogue since 1997.
When Kylie Minogue headed into the studio to begin work on a new album last year, she was all set to cook up another batch of the irresistible pop goodies she’s come to be known ― and adored ― for delivering over the past three decades.

But thanks to a little nudging from her A&R guy and an exploratory two-week songwriting trip to Nashville in July, the pop star suddenly found herself with visions of cowboy boots and banjos dancing in her head.

Drawn to the sounds of country music ― and its rich history of storytelling ― Minogue returned to London to record “Golden,” her 14th studio album. The first collection of songs to be entirely co-written by the singer since 1997′s “Impossible Princess,” the album, which features elements of country music but is still decidedly pop (and filled with trademark Minogue bops) is being touted as one of her most personal to date.

Though she’s currently recovering from a bout of bronchitis, Minogue ― ever the trooper ― refused to let a little coughing come between her and a conversation about some of the influences that make “Golden” truly shine. She called HuffPost earlier this week to chat about being starstruck by Dolly Parton, the dangers of line dancing and the unexpected cameo her father (and his muscle car) made on the album.

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When did you hear your first Dolly Parton song?

I would have been under 10 years old and it would have been in a suburb called Wantirna in Melbourne, Australia, sometime in the ’70s. I don’t remember which song I heard first. It could have been “Jolene.” Or maybe “Islands In The Stream”? Those were probably the first two songs.

I saw her perform for the first time at the end of 2015 at the Hollywood Bowl. Back then, I had no idea that I would be making an album with any reference to her or any kind of country influence. But I did feel like I saw the light when I saw her perform. She was unbelievably inspiring.

What is it about Dolly that makes her such a goddess?

I think it’s almost impossible to say, which is why she is one. I keep coming back to this light that was emanating from her. It helped that she was dressed in white and had the spotlight on her and all of that but you really get invested in her songs, you get invested in her wit and humor — her banter is hilarious — she’s just got it. You’re so entranced by her.

So then, when I started making this album and I went to Nashville and bought the T-shirt that says “What Would Dolly Do?” I was really very pleased that I had seen her perform live. I had a sense of what those kind of songs can say and transmit to an audience, and that influenced the writing of “Golden.” That’s not to say that I don’t have 30 years’ worth of songs that connect with people but I think the fact that these new songs are story-based is the real difference.

Did you get to meet her?

I met her before that show and I was totally starstruck. I’m quite sure my hands ended up around her waist and I don’t know how they got there. [Laughs] I don’t even know what happened! I was just thrilled to meet her. I don’t even know what I said! I think it was something about Australia? Maybe “Australia loves you!” [Laughs]

It’s almost impossible to imagine Kylie Minogue being in a situation where she’s the one who’s starstruck.

It takes a lot, actually. It really does. She’s one of the people that did it to me.

You’re line dancing in the video for “Dancing.” Had you done it before? Is line dancing even a thing in Australia?

Oooh, good question. I’m sure it is somewhere. But for me, what I knew of line dancing was that everyone from 7-year-olds to 70-year-olds does it, so it can’t be that difficult, right? Now, I don’t know how difficult your basic line dancing is but what we needed to do was take line dancing and somehow mix it into my world. Let’s just say I think I suffered for that video — I really do. I know I did! The repetitive movement, all of the leg lifts on just one side of my body — in fact, when the choreographer sent through the four different sections of the dance routine I almost balked. I said to him, “Looks amazing, but I think you’re going to have to simplify it,” because I had actually had a bit of a back problem, so I was extra worried.

As per usual, I go into rehearsals and I’m still rolling my eyes and going, “That’s not going to happen” and “That’s why [these backup dancers] are dancers, they can do that but I’m not going to do it” but I ended up doing all of it.

Talk to me about Nashville. I get the feeling you fell in love with it.

Nashville was an unforgettable experience in so many ways. I went in July and up until then, I’d been working in and out of different studios in other places. In each session, I’d go in and say, “Did Jamie — my A&R guy — say ‘country’ to you?” And they’d go, “Yeah.” And I’d ask, “Do you know what he means by that?” And they’d say, “Nope!” So I’d say, “OK. Let’s just write a song.” So we went down the traditional path for me which is pop, dance, electro — whatever.

Then to go to the source, to go to Nashville, somewhere I’ve never been — already that’s exciting because it’s somewhere new. Prior to that when I was in studio sessions in London I started asking other writers and producers and musicians, “I’m going to Nashville. Have you been?” And the enthusiasm and the love with which they spoke of Nashville was pretty amazing so I thought, This has to be good. From a musician point of view — it sounded like some kind of mecca. And they were right! Suddenly I had emails saying, “Go here for coffee” and “Go here for the beers” and “Here’s my friend’s number.” It’s like you’ve landed in a community that’s all at the altar of the song.

Actually, I really did pray the night before I started working in Nashville. I clasped my hands together — OK, I was on a rooftop bar, but — I had my hands together and I shut my eyes or I looked up to the sky, I can’t remember exactly, but I said, “I just need one! Please just give me one song! Two or three would be great — but I just need one song.” And I got that song — I got three of them, actually. The whole experience was amazing and going to the Bluebird Cafe and The Listening Room and not knowing any of these artists but just being an audience member and listening to a person talk about their song and then sing, it was incredible. And I knew it was about the song, not the production. The production could turn into anything when we got back to London, which is what happened with “Dancing.” The demo is not the record that you hear — the song is there, but definitely not the production.

What were the other two songs that you wrote while you were there?

The two that made the album are “Sincerely Yours” and “Golden.” There are a bunch of others that did not make the cut.

I go to Nashville three or four times a year to visit my best friend and I love it. Did you feel seduced by the city? Will you end up back there at some point?

Definitely. It was July, it was balmy, I was there with one of my managers — a woman — and I had no distractions. I was only there for one reason ― to work. I mean, I wanted to explore, too, but I didn’t have much time for extracurricular activities. But on my first day, I felt like, “I think this trip is going to work out.” And when I left there, I did a few more months of work in London. But everything that I had learned and absorbed in Nashville just stayed with me. That’s where we got the DNA for the record and brought it back to London.

And, importantly, the two main co-writers I had — I had one for each of the two weeks that I was there — are both English and about my age, so they know my whole history. I didn’t have explain anything or school them in anything. They know me. They get it. I’m part of their youth and their lives, but they both have apartments in Nashville and are in and out of the city all of the time. They were really good bridges or conduits to access what would work for me, but obviously, I haven’t made a country record. It would make no sense for me to make a country record! That would be disingenuous and not authentic, but to tap into [that genre] and find what flavors I could take from that was important.

Which brings me to my next question: Did Taylor Swift’s music or career have any influence on the album? She went from country to pop, and now you’re heading in the other direction and I know you worked with Nathan Chapman, who produced several of her albums, so it seems like she might have been on your radar.

In as much as she’s such a famous country export and does have that pop hybrid career, her name was bound to come up in my writing sessions ― and it did. But there really wasn’t a song or a sound that I could say, “That’s what I want.” We just had to find it for ourselves. But I was aware that what I’m doing was kind of the inverse of what she did except for me, it’s just a country influence, it’s not a country album. I was inspired mostly by the storytelling of country music and I think of a song that was written back here [in London] — “A Lifetime To Repair” — I just wouldn’t have had the words or that delivery if it wasn’t through that country portal. It was just a different kind of writing. And then the challenge was to bring it into my world so that it remains authentic.

I know you’ve been to Thailand several times in the last year. Did anything from your time there influence or change your approach to the songwriting for “Golden”?

I want to say no but in effect, it did because I went to Thailand at the start of 2017. I needed to get away — I needed to get out of London and I went with a couple of friends. So, I guess it did because it was a really amazing week I spent with them. You know when you have friends that you can talk all day with or you can say nothing at all ― you’re comfortable with each other. I just felt a weight lift off my shoulders. So, it did affect the album because it affected my headspace, it affected my physical health — I just felt better — even though I didn’t end up writing any songs about balmy beaches or palm trees.

Tell me about the song “Shelby ’68.” How did your dad and his love of cars end up on the album?

I thought I’d really like to do a song for my family, and to say my dad is a car enthusiast is the understatement of the century. He could tell the story of his life through cars: how he paid for each one, where he got them from — it’s his thing. As a teenager, he lived in Orange Country — and that was the mid-50s —and it was all about cars and the turn ups and the ducktail haircut and all of that. I think that’s where his love of American cars came from. To cut a long story short, Mustangs became his thing. He’s had this Shelby for a number of years. It’s candy-apple red and it’s been souped up to be a racing car — even though he’s getting on a bit [in age] to be racing [Laughs] but he’d still take a slow burn around the lap if he could. So by writing about his car, [the song] was still in that countrified, Americana world but, again, still has an authenticity to it — which is through my dad. The Mustang is at his house — it’s there.

We did the song and I called my dad and told him about it and as soon as the demo was knocked into shape, I told him, “I’ll send it to you. It might not make the album, but I’d like you to hear it.” And then I asked my brother if he could record the car. My brother was actually unwell at the time but he still went over to my parents’ place and voice-noted the car. He sent me all these notes [that were labeled things like] “starting up,” “ambling,” “driving away,” “driving back,” “power down” — recordings of all of the different stages of the car in action. So then I forwarded all of them to my producer who wrote back in a heartbeat saying, “Oh my God. This is why I make records. This is such a beautiful thing.”

When the car is driving away at the end of the recording, at the end of the song there’s a tiny, tiny, little bird tweet — I don’t know if you’ll hear it but we both heard it and it was breaking our hearts. So, when I performed that song on this little mini-tour that I just did and you hear all these recorded car elements in it — it’s just so touching! I was like, “That’s my dad’s car. Wait a second ― that’s my dad driving his car! He’s on my album! It’s amazing!” The story in the song is a fantasy, of course, but it comes from a genuine place.

Did you get bit by the same bug as your dad?

I do like a muscle car, and I guess that’s because I’m my father’s daughter. I drove across America in the mid-’90s with my boyfriend at the time in a ’78 Trans Am T-Top with no air conditioning in August. We drove all the way across the country and it was hot as it could be — actually it was hot in every sense of the word [Laughs].

“Golden” is available for purchase and streaming on Friday, April 6. For more from Kylie Minogue, visit her official website, follow her on Twitter and check out her Instagram. For upcoming tour dates and other appearances, head here.

'I'm not giving up on relationships, I'll be foolish again': Kylie Minogue on heartache and turning 50By CHRISSY ILEY FOR YOU MAGAZINE

After last year’s split with fiancé Joshua Sasse, Kylie Minogue is back, ‘giving it everything’. She talks frankly to Chrissy Iley about heartache, her greatest fear and – who’d have thought it? – turning 50.

For me, there will only ever be one Kylie.

By that I mean forget Jenner, I’m talking Minogue – the girl from Melbourne who bounced on to our television screens at 18 playing Charlene in Neighbours and dazzled us with her charm and energy. And she’s gone on dazzling us ever since – through the reinventions, the break-ups (Jason Donovan, Michael Hutchence), the bad hairdos and her 2005 breast cancer diagnosis. The perennially youthful pop princess has taken it all on and is still the sweetest, smiliest diva you’ll ever find in The Royal Suite at The Ritz, which is where we meet, near her Knightsbridge flat. Her complexion is flawless, her hair longer and more golden than ever – I can’t believe she’ll be 50 next month.

Last year Kylie split up with her fiancé, actor Joshua Sasse, 20 years her junior. It was a heady, crazy love: they met when she made a guest appearance on his musical comedy show Galavant, he proposed after six months, but just over six months later they’d fallen out of love. All kinds of rumours circulated: that she’d changed her mind days before the wedding, that he’d had an on-set romance. The truth, of course, was more subtle and more painful, and the only way to release it was through songs from her heart. So Kylie’s latest album, Golden, is her most personal ever, her deepest thoughts set to music in a mixture of seamless pop and hypnotic country. Her voice is perfect for country – pure and empathic – and the lyrics are soul-baring, as she reveals…

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Was I really going to get married? I had the ring on the finger, didn’t I? But we hadn’t actually planned a wedding. It was a beautiful moment and I loved it, but then, you know, as time goes on… What happened? It’s complicated. To try to put it in a nutshell would not only be too difficult but unfair.

Actually, I never thought I was the marrying kind. In my song ‘A Lifetime to Repair’ I say, ‘I thought I’d settle down, a happy-ever-after princess…’ I know for a lot of people that’s where they want to end up but, for me, it never was. I guess I thought, ‘That’s what people do, maybe I’ll give it a try.’ But either it isn’t for me or I was with the wrong person. I was swept up in the moment and I’m not afraid to admit that.

I’m not giving up on relationships, though, and I’ll probably be foolish again. Otherwise I might as well stay at home and get lots of cats. No offence to multiple-cat-loving people who stay home, but my greatest fear is loneliness, even though sometimes I crave to be alone. I just want some quiet. Some days I want to date, other days I think I just don’t want a boyfriend right now. I’m not looking for a cat either.

Making the decision to end the relationship was the hardest part. After the break-up people were saying, ‘I hope you’re OK’, and I thought, you know I am OK. I’ve coped with the help of laughter, friends, music and family. Once it was done it was a relief to both of us because it’s hard. You hang on to what is good and it’s hard to let go and you feel strangely embarrassed, thinking, ‘Oh, are we supposed to try to make this work?’

I don’t know how I became a gay icon. When I started out I hadn’t had much tragedy in my life – apart from bad hairdos
I sing ‘I’m Broken Hearted’. Actually, I was broken. Because for a long time I was in a relationship that we both knew was ending, and that takes its toll on you. So going into the studio and getting all that stuff out of my system was a way of dealing with it.

In the beginning the album was very much a Dear Diary... Now I’ve moved on, and the songs have, too. It’s about me, my relationship, where I am in my life. I reached a point where I thought, more than anything, I’ve got to be honest with myself, so I wrote about relationships and love and the usual culprits.

The great thing about country music is that you can put more of a story in the song. You can work some humour in. And the beautiful thing about the really sad songs is that as well as being hauntingly sad they are upbeat. It was my A&R guy Jamie Nelson’s idea to give them a country edge. We started in the UK and then went to Nashville where I worked with English writers who live there.

Nashville had a profound effect on me – people there seem so emotionally connected. There’s such a different feeling about the place. It’s not like London, LA, Melbourne or Sydney. I loved seeing an audience of all ages at The Bluebird Café in stetsons and cowboy boots. I would love to go back to Nashville. I feel I’ve just scraped the surface and I want to get to the next level. It really helped me believe in the songs. That’s the energy: you go to performance rooms there and the songwriters talk about how the song came about. I felt I could fall in love a million times.

I didn’t know this album would be called Golden. But I was sifting and chipping away [at it] for such a long time, and I thought, I just need a nugget of gold… Songwriting can be a bit like therapy, so it was the style of my healing. And I liked the idea that we’re all golden – not old, not young, but golden.

You can’t make yourself younger. I’m always asked how I feel about being my age in this industry, and such questions perpetuate the myth that you can’t be older. You are who you are. People also used to ask me how it felt to be 18 when I was starting out. I didn’t know because I had nothing to compare it to. Men don’t get asked these questions. They don’t get told they look too young, too old, not good enough.

But I’d be lying if I said I never think about getting older. Just today I was looking in a magnifying mirror, putting on mascara, and I said to the guy doing my make-up, I think I need to do something. I’m not pro or against [surgery]. One of my absolute idols is Jane Fonda, and the way she has handled it is admirable. I remember her saying something like, it’s 80 per cent genetics, ten per cent taking care of yourself and ten per cent a good surgeon. So if, and when, the time comes I’ll be taking a leaf out of Jane Fonda’s book.

The heels come off as soon as I get home. High heels and walking down stairs – my knees make sure I know about it. They’re saying, ‘How much longer are we going to be doing this?’ A lot of people I know are turning 50 and one thing that seems to ring true for all of us is: this is me, I feel better within myself now – I’m turning another corner of who I am. And a lot of things start to make sense. Things that you can’t have known when you were younger.

I have to go through the menopause twice. I’ve done it once already. The first was medically induced when they suppressed my oestrogen for my cancer treatment. So at least I know what it will be like. You are flummoxed, you are hot and you forget what you’re saying. So I’ll be back in the fridge! I remember a friend of mine a bit older than me used to open the fridge and stand in front of it. I’m ahead of the game with that experience.

I felt a lot of guilt for my family when I had cancer. I was in that moment, trying to get through, and they felt helpless. They weren’t, because their strength was important to me. It was tough to see them hurting so much and putting on a brave face. I don’t know how much they cried because they just couldn’t show that hurt to me then. Now I’m going to say clichéd things: you take a look at the bigger picture, what’s important to you, who is important to you, what you want to do differently – although I didn’t want to do anything differently. I just wanted to get better and get on with it. But I did realise that I love what I do and sometimes the good things come from beautiful moments of connection. I’ve got pretty good fans. They’re really kind.

I don’t know how I became a gay icon. When I started out I hadn’t had a lot of real tragedy in my life – apart from bad hairdos. Perhaps it was playing someone who goes against the grain: Charlene was a tomboy mechanic. And then when I tried to release a single people said, ‘You can’t do that, you’re an actress not a singer,’ and I had to overcome that. I campaigned for gay marriage in Australia. I was in London during the voting process last November, and I remember texting my sister Dannii and saying, ‘What if it doesn’t happen?’ It’s a modern country and we want to feel that we are forward-thinking and liberal, so it was kind of shocking that we were so far behind in that. I did wonder if people are sick of celebrities talking about it, but the irony is you’re more likely to be heard if you have the platform of celebrity.

I’m really unfaithful to beauty products – I use whatever is in the cupboard. But I always cleanse my face and I could probably count the number of times I’ve gone to bed with mascara on: I have to get everything off. I’m currently using Charlotte Tilbury because I worked with her recently and she generously gave me a ton of make-up, but I also love exploring. I swear by using a muslin face cloth for exfoliation because it’s never too harsh, and I like a good sunblock. You can’t really stay out of the sun in Australia, and I love the vibes of the sea, so I get myself a bit of vitamin D. But I reapply sunblock all the time, and I’m under the tree with a hat, fully covered, swatting mosquitoes!

My body clock wakes me up early, at 5 or 6am. But then I tell myself to go back to sleep, and that’s my best sleep. I’ll wake up again at 9.30, although that varies with where I am and what I’ve got to do that day. Breakfast at home is Illy coffee and a bread called pain Poilâne – you could break a tooth on it – with goat’s butter or almond butter or avocado, or maybe toasted with an egg.

I like to get fit by working as opposed to having a regime. I’ve been very lax on exercise, but I do like yoga. When I was about 19 I went to a retreat. I was the youngest person there, the smallest and the thinnest, but everyone goes for different reasons. It’s the kind of place where you wake up at 6am and they tell you that by the end of the week you will abseil. Everyone goes, ‘No, we can’t do that’, but sure enough everyone does it. I liked that empowerment thing.

If you don’t give it everything, you may as well not be here. I took a cab the other day – I had an appointment but I really wanted to take a detour to get a coffee on the way. The driver said, ‘Hey, of course. I want to thank you. You sent my daughter a picture.’ I remembered I’d been in that cab before and he’d said it would be such a thrill for his daughter. He said, ‘We got it, we framed it and wrapped it up, and she opened it on her birthday and burst into tears.’ It was a beautiful moment.

Kylie's Kicks

TVFeud, the TV drama about Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.FILM Baby Driver and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.LISTENING TO I like mellow stuff. I love Nick Mulvey. And Dua Lipa.MOST ANNOYING HABIT Probably being indecisive. I do a lot of panic-ordering in restaurants. It’s a pressure to have to choose.BIGGEST FEAR Loneliness and the fact that I might have to get a cat one day – but I don’t want to upset my friends with cats.DESCRIBE YOURSELF IN THREE WORDS Caring, indecisive, a clown.IF YOU WERE A POLITICIAN… I’d say, let’s all sit down with a cup of tea and work it out.

Ahead of the launch of her new album, the Aussie pop icon talks to Katie Wright and reflects on 30 years in showbiz.

With a new album out this month, a tour starting in the autumn and a milestone birthday coming up in May, 2018 is shaping up to be a big year for Kylie Minogue.

“I’m trying to think of a way to say it without swearing,” the singer says with a giggle, when I ask how she’s feeling about approaching the big 5-0. She’s following her 50-something friends’ lead, she adds, in streamlining her life and getting rid of anything that’s holding her back (which could be a reference to calling off her engagement to British actor Joshua Sasse at the beginning of last year).

The Australian, who has called London home since 2011, says the new album, Golden, is as much about looking to the future as reflecting on the past, when we meet at the launch of her second eyewear collection with Specsavers.

And after 30 years in entertainment, Minogue knows a thing or two about fashion and fame. Here’s what the pop princess had to say about looking back and moving forward during this landmark year…

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Glasses are having a real high-fashion moment right now, thanks to the likes of Gucci – do you think about trends when you’re designing?
“I don’t know if I go so much with fashion, or just more of a feeling. Certainly with the pink and blue tinted lenses – I think they [Specsavers] did it just to quieten me down because I was driving them mad. I said, ‘Please, please, please can we have them?’, because when I would wear the pink tint, men and women would all go, ‘Oh my god, I love them’. I want people of all ages across the country to be able to find something in the collection that works for them, because I’m really touched if someone chooses to invest in some of these frames.”

Are there any returning fashion trends that you can’t get on board with now because you remember them from the first time around?
“There’s some stuff I probably would like to do again, but it doesn’t work for me now. Maybe if it was for a photo session or performance, that’s different to me sitting here and wanting to feel like myself. But I don’t think you’ll catch me in a crop top again, for example. I mean those days are over!”

Will we be seeing more of the cowgirl style from the Golden video when you go on tour later this year?
“Yeah, we’re going to have fun with that, it’s going to be great, I cant wait! That style, lets face it, isn’t new for me, but I think there’s going to be rhinestone and fringing at the the same time!”

You recorded some of your album in Nashville – what was that like?
“I literally loved every minute of it – and there’s not that many experiences you can say that about. I arrived with one of my managers at the airport, and there’s a guy playing guitar and singing before you’ve even left the terminal, and she said, ‘I’m gonna fall in love a million times here’. I was like, ‘Great line for a song!’ I didn’t manage to put it in a song, but it was just that feeling of excitement and just knowing we were there for music and I was lined up to work with really good writers.”

You’ve talked about how you had a bit of a tough time last year – is songwriting cathartic for you?
“Oh it’s brilliant, yeah, it’s free therapy! When I started working on the album, I was just getting it all off my chest, and I’m kind of thankful now that the songs weren’t very good. It was good to just, kind of, purge and then move onto writing songs that were not about some ONE, they were about me. This is about where I am in my life – looking back, but also looking forward. I had made the decision: I just want to write and sing from the heart. Not that I haven’t done before, but to really go a bit further.”

You’ve got the big birthday coming up this year – how are you feeling about turning 50?
“I feel mostly good. Obviously, I’ve got a number of friends who have turned 50 or are approaching 50 and the general vibe is that they just go, ‘I don’t have time or energy for all the other stuff’. If anything’s slowing the ship down and is just old news or old noise, get rid of it, so you can get through smoother and more efficiently to where you want to go. I mean, other things about getting older are not so much fun, like you’ve got to take care of your body a bit more, so ask me at the end of tour how I went, we’ll see!”

If you could go back in time, what advice would you give to 18-year-old Kylie?
“What I would like to do is be by her side constantly! But then again, maybe I wouldn’t have learnt the lessons I’ve learnt. I’d say keep a diary. There’s definitely occasions now, I think, ‘God, I really wish I had a detailed account of that day or that experience’. I’d tell to her to try to not worry so much, but I can’t imagine her listening to me! It would fall on deaf ears.”

The new Kylie Minogue Eyewear collection, exclusive to Specsavers, is in stores nationwide from April 9

When something’s broken, you fix it. If you’re a pop star and that something happens to be your heart, you’ll probably write an album about stitching yourself back together. Though Kylie Minogue’s 14th studio album Golden beams with somber hues of love lost in the wake of a highly publicized separation from actor Joshua Sasse, the glistening 16-track set further proves the Australian singer-songwriter is keen on flipping the script as she surges — personally and creatively — into a new era.

Though she’s forged a career bopping through matters of the heart on tracks like “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” and “Spinning Around,” Minogue’s mostly chucked her dance-pop roots out the window in favor of country-inspired sounds of the American South on Golden, a shimmering, refreshingly authentic anti-breakup album that’s more about empowerment and resilience than it is about cradling a sorrowed soul. Partly recorded in Nashville with a handful of producers and writers — including Sky Adams, Ash Howes, Amy Wadge (Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud”), and Liz Rose (Taylor Swift’s “Teardrops on My Guitar”) — Golden is an unexpected yet glistening ode to the timeless shimmer of the gilded woman at its center. “The last thing I’d want is a breakup album,” Minogue says. “I was done with that. Through! Moved on! And I was so much happier to have moved on. Things were better, not worse! It’s the reverse of what people might think… it’s not about a breakup; It’s about me and about where I find myself at this point in my life!”

On the cusp of her 50th birthday, EW caught up with Minogue to discuss the new material, feeling liberated from the media’s scrutiny over her age and relationships, what happened to the dance-pop tracks she recorded during early Golden sessions (spoiler: there’s “another album” of leftover electro tunes potentially waiting in the wings), and whether she’ll continue to hide that follow-up Robbie Williams duet she recorded all the way back in 2016.

Golden is out Friday, April 6. Pre-order the album here, and read on for EW’s full preview with Minogue below.

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ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I’ve had some time to sit with the album, and it’s so lovely and not at all what I was expecting. Particularly because I know you were initially in the studio with Guy Chambers, DJ Fresh, Karen Poole — none of whom are on the album!KYLIE MINOGUE: There’s basically another album [of material]! Those tracks were done in the first six months. And then my A&R suggested the country angle. Of course I said sure, because I’ll try everything! But that was swiftly followed by, “Well… what do you mean?” [Laughs] I didn’t know what that meant… it took six months to get there! So yes, I was with all of those people in the studio, which was a lot of fun and we touched on some great material, but we ultimately went down a different lane… The album’s not as much country as some people might imagine… but that different style made way for writing lyrics differently. Some of the themes [from the early material] were the same, just written differently.

You recorded another song with Robbie Williams back in 2016, too. Where’s that!?
No one’s heard that either! There are a few waiting in the wings. We’ll see if they ever come out or not!

Fair enough, I’ll take it. But, this album feels like if Aphrodite had a baby with The Lumineers and Dolly Parton.
It does have a bit of Aphrodite in it, I think with the feels!

Yeah! It’s a seamless blend of the organic instrumentation with your signature dance-pop. Why do you think the styles of dance and country worked so well together on these songs?
It’s funny that you link it to Aphrodite. [Aphrodite lead single] “All the Lovers,”, when I’d done that track with Jim Eliot, Mima Stilwell, and Stuart Price, who executive-produced the whole album, I coined the phrase, “Dolly Parton Litmus Test.” We started singing “All the Lovers” in a country manner, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember why, but from then on we said that’s a really good test for a song. If you can do it as a country song, that means it’s good! It’s a full electro, synthpop, dance, euphoria track that sounds just as great on guitar… so there is a little link to Aphrodite here. With the songs on this album, it was a case of balance. “L.O.V.E.” and “Raining Glitter” are slightly more produced than the others. And sometimes we’d discuss the songs not having enough country or having too much country… and we’d come back around the other way. It was dependent on the song, how produced it was or how organic it remained!

“Better Than Today” from Aphrodite also has a country vibe. So that style isn’t really new to you, like some might assume.
Yeah! But I still needed some encouragement throughout making this album. I’m always crediting my A&R guy, Jamie Nelson, for bringing this idea to the table and having a vision… it was a stroke of genius on his part. It took some work, but once we hit upon what we thought was the DNA [while recording] in Nashville, it became fun because I knew what the goal was. I got “Dancing,” “Sincerely Yours, and “Golden” in Nashville. We knew those were keepers.

“A Lifetime to Repair” is my favorite example of the mix working so well. You’ve got fiddle, big bass, and that chorus is fantastic. And, I have to admit, as a fan, if someone had said “Kylie Minogue dance song” and “fiddle” in the same sentence before I listened to the album, I wouldn’t know how to process that.[Laughs] I really did believe in it, and of course I hoped fans would come with me on this journey. Again, I had all these other songs with more dance vibes… and [“Dancing” producer] Sky Adams can produce anything. He can do a full-on dance record, pop, rap… I had done those songs before, and I was hanging on to some of them. And there were some good songs in there. When we got close to the end of recording to hit our deadline and came up with “A Lifetime to Repair,” “L.O.V.E.,” “Live a Little” and “Stop Me From Falling,” I spoke with Jamie and he said, “I think we may need to sacrifice some good songs for the benefit of this album.”… he backed it up by telling me to believe in the album. He said, “If you think about it, through your career you’ve taken these turns consistently.” Maybe not every album, but at various points throughout my career. The clincher was when he said, “I’d just hate us to get to the end of the project and look back and say, ‘I really wish we’d gone for it.’” That’s all I needed to hear. It was going to be tough, but I’d separate myself from the older songs and just go for it. I needed that bolstering and someone to help me with the confidence with that.

The songs you let go didn’t pass the Dolly Parton Litmus Test?
I don’t think they did. They were just a different vibe. Like I said, they could be in the wings, it could be that someone else records them. But I’m happy with what I’ve got!

I’ve seen so many people talk about what you ended up with as a breakup album, but to me it doesn’t always play like that. Sure, there are songs about somber subjects like “Radio On” and “One Last Kiss,” but there’s a thread of resilience and of not letting the downs impede the highs. Do you agree that it’s not a traditional breakup album?
You’ve read it correctly. I know it’s a great sound bite [to say it’s about a breakup] and that’s how I went into the album, and I know about heartbreak. But I wasn’t broken-hearted, though I was a bit broken. That’s what I was writing about… about the situation that [I’d] gotten myself into. The last thing I’d want is a breakup album. I was done with that. Through! Moved on! And I was so much happier to have moved on. Things were better, not worse! It’s the reverse of what people might think… it’s not about a breakup; It’s about me and about where I find myself at this point in my life!

Of course no one wants to have their heart broken, but as an artist, is there some part of you that’s like, this sucks in the moment, but damnit this is going to make a good song when I’m over it?[Laughs] Yeah, probably! Because you know it’s part of healing. It was about me and figuring out how I got to the position I was in, and less about the other person. But, yeah, I think somewhere in you it’s a truth we all know that when you’re in a difficult place, great things can come from that. Not from a place of heartbreak; it was a real turning point in my life and I’m now really grateful for it because I like where I am!

Do you see this album as a way to take back control of your narrative and discussing these personal matters on your own terms, not on the press’ terms?
Definitely…. On “Golden,” the line I had in my head was “we’re not young, we’re not old, we’re golden.” It didn’t quite fit in, so we adapted it for the song. That was one example of trying to claim something that I felt I had no control over. Doing promo for my last album, I was often asked, “How does it feel to be a woman your age in this industry?” and I was just over it. For my own satisfaction, I wanted to be able to say that we just are who we are at any point in time…. I was 46 then, and now I’m about to be 50. I don’t mind being asked about my age at all, but the way it was framed last time was getting very boring and frustrating. So, yes, telling it how it is was very liberating [on this album].

A lot of people have trouble separating age and maturity, though. You’ve obviously matured throughout your career, so what does the Kylie on Golden represent that the Kylie five or 10 years ago didn’t?
Oh wow, that’s a good question. I feel like I’m in a different place! It was a real turning point. I don’t know if it’s my age, perhaps it is. People say around this time in your life stuff starts to make sense. Of course it doesn’t all make sense, but I do feel different. On the last album, I was a little bit lost and attaching myself to too many different influences. But that’s okay! I had to go through that, and I knew I didn’t want to go through that again on this album. I wanted to have clarity, I wanted to simplify, and that’s part of the reason I signed with BMG, because of Jamie Nelson. I worked with him for 10 years at Parlophone. So we have a good track record together, we get on, we understand each other, and I knew who to trust [in him], and it made a big difference.

Kylie Minogue is a woman who needs no introduction. She's dominated the world of acting, music, fashion and pop culture for over three decades, and now she's added designer to her resume with the release of her second collection for Specsavers.

Ahead of the Australian-born beauty's 50th birthday - and in the aftermath of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia - we sat down to chat all things style.

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With the release of your new album and now your new collection with Specsavers, is it safe to say that this has been a pretty busy year?
I could really do with a spa day, let's put it that way! It has been amazing. Last year was making the album, and it sometimes feels like life didn’t happen before it. It has been so overwhelming and a moment in time, now that I'm in my '50s.

It shot to number one in Australia straight away too.
How incredible is that? Above and beyond, it has been so fantastic!

With both those releases and everything else you've accomplished in your career, what inspires you to keep creating?
Curiosity! For everything. There is always a new song to sing, a new record to make, and a new project to be involved with.

It’s your birthday in a couple weeks, happy birthday! What advice would you give to your 18-year-old self?
What wouldn’t I give her! I know she wouldn’t listen because I know that no matter what advice we get, we also need to learn; We need experience. But the penny has finally dropped for me in a couple of very big ways. The relief of realising that now that I get it. Why did it take me so long?! But here I am... I would tell her to keep a diary!

And given that it's just been Australian fashion week, it's only fitting to ask your favourite Australian labels?
I heard that Alice McCall did a lovely show! I have been wearing a tonne of her dresses and patchwork jeans. I also wore them for a couple of performances. She is nailing it right now!

What's your personal style motto?
The simpler, the better.

What's your fashion uniform?
It depends what it's for. It's incredible how a piece can shine on stage when beforehand you'd look in the mirror and think "OMG, it's too much!"

If I'm going on a date, I will try and wear a mid-length slip dress and sharpen it with a jacket, something easy. I also love satin lace-up ankle boots with the toes out. But throughout the day, I'm so lazy! I'll still wear jeans, trainers and a singlet or denim shirt with either a hat or a topknot.

You've always been very into fashion, how did it feel being on the other side of it all and actually designing?
I wear glasses every day and first started wearing them when I was in my early twenties. I’d been experiencing headaches and had difficulty maintaining focus when reading, so I had my eyes tested and I’ve been a specs wearer ever since. In that sense, it was an easy story to tell.

Specsavers have made it so easy and fun for me. From the design perspective, it has been such an easy process because they know what they are doing and considered enough, but also open to fashion elements. It has been a learning curve for me where they aren’t just high street glasses that you can just knock out, they need a longer lead time as they are medical grade instruments. It is how people see and get about!

What is your favourite frame from the collection?
The pair I have been wearing lately are the rose gold pair called Never Too Late with a marble effect on the side. The idea came when I was in Australia last year and saw a journalist who was wearing glasses in that style. We didn’t have a double bridge frame in the range just yet and I wanted to design them myself. That's one way of illustrating how it's a real collaboration and they really take into consideration what I like. There is also one called ‘Chocolate’ which is a tortoiseshell, slightly cat-eye frame. That's an easy go-to for me.

Kylie Minogue's latest collection for Specsavers includes three different design themes - Modern Bling, Subtle Classics and Reinvented Vintage - and two exclusive fashion tints. The nine frames are priced from $199 for two pairs.